Bad news
President Donald Trump has been known to show his disdain for pollsters, especially those who have bad news for him.
Well, he certainly won’t have anything good to say about the recently released Franklin & Marshall College Poll for February.
The poll showed that only 32 percent of registered voters across Pennsylvania think Trump is doing an excellent or good job. That number is far below the 60 percent approval rating generated by Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama at the same point in his presidency.
In somewhat of a surprise, the poll showed that only 61 percent of Republicans think Trump is doing an excellent or good job. The poll shows that 35 percent of Independents and nine percent of Democrats think likewise.
The poll did show that Trump’s strongest support in the state is in the Southwest Region, which includes Fayette, Greene, Washington, Westmoreland, Beaver, Cambria, Indiana and Somerset counties. There, Trump had an approval rating of 40 percent. Next was the Northwest Region at 38 percent followed by the Northeast and Central regions at 37 percent each. They were trailed by the Southeast Region at 31 percent, Allegheny County at 25 percent and Philadelphia at 10 percent.
Despite the low approval numbers, the poll did show that 51 percent of those surveyed were confident of Trump’s ability to improve the economy.
The poll also showed some low numbers for Democratic incumbents Gov. Tom Wolf and U.S. Sen. Bob Casey as they gear up for their re-election bids next year.
The poll showed that 38 percent of those surveyed think Wolf is doing an excellent or good job. while 37 percent think the same about Casey.
What should be of particular concern to both Wolf and Casey is their low approval ratings in the Southwest Region. The region gave Wolf his lowest approval rating in the state at 26 percent. Back in 2014, Wolf won Fayette County 57-42 percent and Greene County 56-43 percent. He lost Washington County 51-48 percent and Westmoreland County 57-42 percent.
Another troubling sign for Wolf was a recent Herald-Standard readership poll which showed 800 respondents thought the governor wasn’t doing a good job. Only 280 said he was doing a good job. Another 124 respondents said they were unsure.
Casey didn’t fare much better than Wolf here, registering an approval rating of 32 percent in the Southwest Region. That was only higher than the Central Region at 25 percent and Allegheny County at 30 percent.
Back in 2012, Casey won Fayette County 50-47 percent but lost Greene County 50-47 percent, Washington County 51-46 percent and Westmoreland County 56-41 percent.
It’s clear from those numbers that both Wolf and Casey should pay close attention to this neck of the woods during their upcoming re-election campaigns. They certainly would be wise not to follow the strategy of the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate Hillary Clinton who campaigned exclusively in Pittsburgh, while ignoring the rest of Southwestern Pennsylvania. As a result of that ineptitude, Clinton lost overwhelmingly here, paving the way for Trump’s victory in the commonwealth.